The Wandering Bard's PBP game is (hopefully) going to be starting in the near future. As a first time PBPer it's not clear to me how various PNP things are going to be done using an asynchronous forum. Or, I may be worrying about things that I don't need to worry about. /shrug

Just brainstorming the idea a bit, there are a couple things that could be helpful:

1) I don't recall where I've seen it before, but I know that I've seen BBCodes for rolling dice. The nice thing about this is that the poster types something like [roll 3d6] and the forum then produces:

Rolled "3d6": 2 + 6 + 3 = 11

as output. So the boards are simulating the rolling of dice, which is a lot less eyebrow raising than me rolling the dice here in real life and typing in the result, and a lot more interactive than having the DM roll everything. If this is interesting I can probably track down where I've seen this before.

2) The WotC forums have the ability to add Show/Hide buttons for things during posts. This seems like it would greatly reduce clutter in a PBP game. It could also be used more generally to hide spoilers or other such things.

Here's the HTML that would do it (I hijacked it from the WotC forums):

3) BBCode for tables. I love tables. I'd like to be able to do to keep track of my spell usage / memorized spells or all kinds of things during a PBP game.

Spell Slots LeftSpell NameSR?
2Magic MissileYes

I think vBulletin has the ability to add customized BBCodes, so I know that #2 and #3 wouldn't be too difficult. I'm not sure about #1, though.

(By the way the current BBCodes that can be used on the forums are here: http://www.penandpapergames.com/forums/misc.php?do=bbcode )

Riftwalker

10-21-2007, 11:17 PM

I should have Googled it before I originally posted. Here's a possible plug-in for the dice:

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showpost.php?p=994284&postcount=117

Zane

10-22-2007, 10:35 AM

If the moderators are really interested in having a dice roller on this site - they should check with the admins (Digitalxero (http://www.thetangledweb.net/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=65)specifically) over at The Tangled Web (http://www.thetangledweb.net/forum.php). They just added one that saves rolls so that they can be viewed later and makes it basically impossible to cheat.

Of course, I'm not sure how much it would be used outside the PbP forums, but that's the admins' call. :-)

Farcaster

12-19-2007, 06:50 PM

The WotC forums have the ability to add Show/Hide buttons for things during posts. This seems like it would greatly reduce clutter in a PBP game. It could also be used more generally to hide spoilers or other such things.

I've implemented a show/hide button. Here's how you would use it:

This is my hidden textWhich would do this:

This is my hidden text

Riftwalker

12-19-2007, 07:18 PM

Awesome!

Thanks!

Digital Arcanist

12-19-2007, 10:32 PM

I think I'm missing something....if anyone can click on the show button then what is the point?

Farcaster

12-20-2007, 12:29 AM

Well, say you wanted to hide a punch line or perhaps part of what you were writing was a spoiler, you could prevent someone from inadvertently seeing it unless they specifically clicked the link.

Digital Arcanist

12-20-2007, 11:21 AM

Ah....so you are relying on the honesty of people you met over the internet? Interesting......

There should be some extra code to limit who is able to see it...like certain players and the GM....

Farcaster

12-20-2007, 11:31 AM

I think you are misunderstanding what the reason for the hide tag is. It is not to limit access to the information, but to prevent it from being displayed unless the member specifically wants to see it. Or, have you ever seen those posts where someone tells a joke and then puts a bunch of carriage returns before the punchline? They could instead use the hide tag to create that delay in reading it that they were looking for.

Mulsiphix

12-24-2007, 04:19 PM

The hide text button is used constantly over at the WOTC forums. I see it most often used in players signatures where they have lots of quotes or conversations. People can read them if they want but aren't forced to be subjected to an eight line conversation every time this person posts. I think such a feature could be quite useful to those running the play by post campaigns.

As far as new BBCodes go I would really like to see a strikethrough BBCode added. It would make certain lists much prettier to look at since I'm currently using different colors to mark things on lists that represent different things. For example I created a list recently that had 20 items and I marked a few items red that represented games I wasn't interested in playing. Strikethrough would have been much easier on the eyes. Sometimes I can't help but wonder if one of my lists will cause somebody to go into epileptic shock :P

Riftwalker

12-24-2007, 06:52 PM

<---- Still wants table tags! :)

Farcaster

12-24-2007, 07:28 PM

Strike added. To use it just type:

Strike This

As far as making a table in bbcode, it is pretty complicated. If a table tag is missing, like a row or cell terminator, or worse the table terminator, then it could cause the entire page formatting to be messed up.

Riftwalker

12-24-2007, 07:54 PM

From the vBulletin manual @ http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/main/bbcode_intro

BB codes must have a closing tag. [ i ] will not be parsed alone; it needs the [/ i ] to be parsed.So [table], [tr], and [td] would probably be ok, no?

Farcaster

12-24-2007, 09:06 PM

Not exactly. If you missed putting in the [table] tag, or you put in a [td] tag without a [tr] then you'd still have formatting problems.

Mulsiphix

12-25-2007, 12:25 AM

Strike added. To use it just type:

Strike ThisAs far as making a table in bbcode, it is pretty complicated. If a table tag is missing, like a row or cell terminator, or worse the table terminator, then it could cause the entire page formatting to be messed up.

Kick Ass! Thank You! ;)

Riftwalker

12-25-2007, 12:30 AM

Hmmm. Ok. I just tried it out on some SMF forums and it works ok there. Maybe vBulletin uses a similar parsing script and can handle it? /shrug